Your Next Dose of Doom: Totally Drug Resistant Tuberculosis

Don't go anywhere or breathe anything.

It is inevitable that 2012 will be rife with omens of doom. Here’s a beaut: Totally Drug-Resistant TB (TDR-TB) has spread to India. TDR-TB (or something very like it) was first reported in Iran in 2009. Now it’s made its way to Mumbai to hang out with charming acquaintances like Multi-Drug-Resistant TB (MDR-TB) and Extremely Drug-Resistant TB (XDR-TB). It’s a pretty doomy disease. DNA India reports that by November of last year PD Hinduja Hospital had received multiple cases “resistant to all first-line (Isoniazid, Rifampicin, Ethambutol, Pyrazinamide and Streptomycin) and second-line (Ofloxacin, Moxifloxacin, Kanamycin, Amikacin, Capreomycin, Para-aminosalicylic acid and Ethionamide) drugs.” We’re sure that everything is fine here stateside, of course, and there is no need to stock up on multiple -mycins until our first case is reported, probably on December 21st. [Source]